"If you want to know what God
thinks about
money, just look at the people He gives it to."
Old Irish Saying
"There are three ways to make money. You can
inherit it. You can marry it. You can steal it."
by Tuesday (Jan 20 ,2009)
Microsoft Stock Price: $19.71
Bill Gates's Wealth: $47.806214 billion
U.S. Population: 305,649,001
Your Personal Contribution: $156.41
"Looking back Moving ahead" has been philosophy of Bill Gates.
His name is William (Bill) Henry Gates III, better known as Bill Gates, was born
on 28 October, 1955 in Seattle, Washington. He is the chairman and Chief
Executive Officer of Microsoft Corporation. Bill Gates was born to a well-to-do
family, his father a successful lawyer, his mother a board member for First
Interstate Bank. Gates has two siblings, Kristianne and Libby. Throughout
grammar school Gates excelled in math and science, and enrolled in Lakeside, an
exclusive preparatory school. In his early life style he had an interest in
software and began programming computers at the age of thirteen. In 1973, Bill
Gates became a student at Harvard University, where he meet Steve Ballmer (now
Microsoft's chief executive officer). While still a Harvard undergraduate, Bill
Gates wrote a version of the programming language BASIC for the MITS Altair
microcomputer.
Did you know that as young teenagers Bill Gates and Paul Allen ran a small
company called Traf-O-Data and sold a computer to the city of Seattle that could
count city traffic?
Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda, have endowed the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation with more than $28.8 billion (as of January 2005) to support
philanthropic initiatives in the areas of global health and learning.
We're assuming about 4 seconds to bend down and pocket the bill. Of course he
can afford to hire people to follow him and pick up any $1000 bills he may drop.
Not that he would, fortunately he doesn't quite think of his wealth or time this
way. The rumours that when the $50,000,000 invoice for his new manor on Lake
Washington came in, he simply said, "Melinda, could you get my wallet. I think
it's in my other pants" are not true. It is ironic that a lot of that house is
going to be underground; rooms built with Windows won't have any.
Under Gates' leadership, Microsoft's mission is continuously to advance and
improve software technology, and to make it easier, more cost-effective and more
enjoyable for people to use computers. The company is committed to a long-term
view, which is reflected in its investment of some $2.6 billion for research and
development during the current fiscal year.
In 2-03-2005 Bill Gates knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his contribution to
the British economy. His titel will be 'Knight Commander of the Order of the
British Empire'. Though he is not allowed to call himself 'Sir' because of his
USA citizenship but may suffix his name with KBE.Bill Gates is one of the most
influential people in the world. And he and Melinda are making a big difference
for good in the world. In 1999, Gates wrote his successful book Business @ The
Speed of Thought.
The Clock attempts to accurately display Bill Gates's wealth, not the value of
his current holdings of Microsoft stock. We take as a baseline of his wealth the
shares of Microsoft that he held in 1995. This is an understatement because it
doesn't include the multi-million dollar trust funds he received at birth from
his grandparents, houses, stock, and other gifts from his wealthy parents, or
investments he purchased with sales of Microsoft shares sold prior to 1995. The
clock adjusts for the extraordinary $3.29 billion dividend that Bill Gates
received from Microsoft at the end of 2004.